Raymond Craib 
Associate Professor
Office: 436 McGraw Hall
Phone: (607) 255-6745
Fax: (607) 255-0469
E-Mail: rbc23@cornell.edu
Curriculum Vitae
Office Hours: Tuesday: 1:00-3:00
Research and Teaching Interests
My research and teaching interests are eclectic although focused primarily on the modern histories of Mexico and Chile. My first book, Cartographic Mexico: A History of State Fixations and Fugitive Landscapes (Duke, 2004), examined the cartographic routines (exploration, surveying, and mapping) that helped forge the Mexican state in the 19th and 20th centuries. The book is part of a broader interest I have in geography, the history of cartography, and spatial theory more generally. I continue to pursue these interests in my teaching and in a short book project on history, geography and obsessions with the 'route' of Cortes by 19th and 20th century writers and travelers.
My current research focuses on the "proceso de los subversivos" in Santiago, Chile in 1920. This persecution of subversives targeted presumed pacifists, anarchists, and members of the IWW, with university students, workers, immigrants, and Peruvian nationals all coming under increased scrutiny in the wake of Chilean mobilizations on the Peruvian border. I focus in particular on the persecution and subsequent death of Jose Domingo Gomez Rojas--a poet and political activist who died in police custody in September, 1920--as well as his comrades (including literary figures such as Manuel Rojas, Jose Santos Gonzalez Vera, Pablo Neruda, and Roberto Meza Fuentes). The project reflects my interests more broadly in the histories of anarchism and literature.
As well as introductory survey courses on colonial and modern Latin America, I teach courses on historical geography, the history of anarchism, and a service learning course on migrant farm workers (mostly from Guatemala and Mexico) in upstate New York.
Courses
| Fall 2012: | On Leave | |
|---|---|---|
| Spring 2013: | HIST 1955 |
No gods, no masters: Anarchism Syllabus |
HIST 6482 |
History/Geography/Theory Syllabus |
Education
Ph.D. Yale University, 2001
M.A. University of New Mexico, 1994
B.A. Eastern Michigan University, 1990
Recent Publications and Awards
Books:
Cartographic Mexico: A History of State Fixations and Fugitive Landscapes (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004) (Spanish translation (México cartográfico: Una historia de paisajes fijados y fugitivos) forthcoming in 2012 with the Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas, UNAM )
Articles and chapters:
“Decolonization and Independence,” in Mark Monmonier, ed., The History of Cartography: Volume 6. The Twentieth Century (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, forthcoming)
“Migration and Labor in the Americas: Praxis, Knowledge and Nations” (co-authored with Mark Overmyer-Velázquez), Hispanic American Historical Review (May 2012)
“The Firecracker Poet: Three Poems of José Domingo Gómez Rojas,” New Letters: A Magazine of Writing & Art 78: 1 (Fall 2011)
“The Life of a Map,” in Jordana Dym and Karl Offen, eds., Mapping Latin America: A Cartographic Reader (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011)
“Historical Geographies,” in Jordana Dym and Karl Offen, eds., Mapping Latin America: A Cartographic Reader (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011)
“The Archive in the Field: Document, Discourse and Space in Mexico’s Agrarian Reform,” Journal of Historical Geography 36: 4 (Oct. 2010).
“Students, anarchists and categories of persecution in Chile, 1920,” A Contracorriente 8: 1 (Fall 2010).
“Relocating Cartography, Postcolonial Studies 12: 4 (Dec. 2009).
“El archivo en el campo: espacio, conocimiento y deslindes en la reforma agraria mexicana," in Hctor Mendoza Vargas y Carla Lois (coords), Historias de la Cartografia de Iberoamrica: Nuevos caminos, viejos problemas (Mexico: Instituto de Geografia, UNAM / Instituto Nacional de Estadistica y Geografia, Mexico, 2009).
“Daniel Riquelme,” “José Domingo Gómez Rojas,” and “Mexican Liberal Agrarian Policies, Nineteenth Century,” all in Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture, 2nd edition, ed. by Jay Kinsbruner and Erick Langer (New York: Charles Scribner Sons, 2008)
“Peasants, Politics and History: Teaching Agrarian History and Historiography.” Radical History Review 88 (Winter 2004).
“Standard Plots and Rural Resistance.” In Gilbert M. Joseph and Timothy Henderson, eds., The Mexico Reader: History, Culture, Politics (Duke University Press, 2003).
“A Nationalist Metaphysics: State Fixations, National Maps, and the Geo-Historical Imagination in Nineteenth –Century Mexico.” Hispanic American Historical Review 82:1 (February 2002).
“Cartography and Power in the Conquest and Creation of New Spain.” Latin American Research Review 35:1 (Spring 2000).
“Discurso cartográfico en el Mexico Porfiriato.” In Hector Mendoza Vargas, coord., Mexico a través de los mapas (Plaza y Valdés Editores y Instituto de Geografía, UNAM, México, 2000).
“’Estas cuestiones no se terminan nunca’: Los límites de la propriedad en la sierra de Chiconquiaco, norte de Xalapa, Veracruz, a finales del siglo XIX.” Memorial: Boletín del Archivo General del Estado de Veracruz 3: 7/8 (January/August, 2000).
“Cartografía y conflicto en la sierra veracruzana: El caso de Las Minas, 1897-1912.” Boletín del Archivo General Agrario de Mexico 7 (July-September, 1999).
(with D. Graham Burnett), “Insular Visions: Cartographic Imagery and the Spanish American War.” The Historian 61:1 (Fall 1998).
“Re-‘covering’ Chinese in Mexico.” The American Philatelist 112:5 (May 1998).
Some Good Links:
Cornell Institute for the Social Sciences' Theme Project 2012-2015: Contested Global Landscapes: Property, Governance, Economy and Livelihoods on the Ground
http://www.philosophyfootball.com/
"Sporting outfitters of intellectual distinction."
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/
The National Security Archive.
http://www.soaw.org/
School of the Americas Watch website--organizing to close the School of Assassins.
http://www.proceso.com.mx/
Proceso, Mexico.
http://www.indymedia.org/en/index.shtml
The Independent Media Center
http://www.thomasekennedy.com/
Thomas Kennedy, author of, among many other novels, Greene's Summer about a Chilean exile in Copenhagen. Kennedy is currently translating works on the life and work of Inge Genefke, founder of the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims.
Welcome to AK Press
Premiere publishers of anarchist writings.
http://www.ncsu.edu/project/acontracorriente/index.htm
A Journal of Social History and Literature.
http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/index.html
An On-Line research center on the history and theory of anarchism.
http://www.quimantu.cl/index.html
Quimantu publishers (Chile): Excellent anarchist and Left collective press in Chile.
http://grupodeestudiosgomezrojas.wordpress.com/historia/
In memory of the 'poeta cohete'!
http://www.iww.org/
Wobblies... a union for all.